Right on. Right on. Right
on. With clarity of heart and soul, Trace Laura Hentz writes poetry and prose
that resonates and illuminates the unfortunate typical burdens of our time.
Mental Midgets is filled with an astute perspective that is missing
from mass media stories. Through the resonance of her writing, those of us who
feel weighted by the burdens of our era, Hentz’s words help lift us up as we
feel less alone and less singular in our attempts to reassert the values for
non-greediness, non-racism, and non-bullying in our multicultural society.

As well as perceptive observations of
the tRUMP crisis, Hentz writes of our enduring indigenous spirit that lives on
and on even as the impact of centuries of human rights abuses against Native
American peoples remain intertwined amongst us. Hentz writes of the
spirit, love, and light that holds us together; within ourselves, with one
another, and amidst our beloved ancestors.

—Poet Anecia Tretikoff

Writer KC Redding emailed: I like the format of Midgets, the way
each work sneaks up on you by yelling in your ear first.Kind of reminds me of walk softly, big stick
words...

Has my brain shrunk already? —Jake’s
dog walker, Rhode Island.

Can you hear me now?

We humans are made Mental Midgets for a purpose.

First it’s funny… then it’s not and then
it hurts.

Tick Tock—electronics are actually
shortening our life.

CODE:Our Shrinking Brains (and
covfefe)

*

Page 1

For your personal safety

Wear
GOLD HATS

&

Eat
PINEAPPLES

Code

The tools we
think we are using also use us: They push us
around, make us think new things, do new things, even be new things. Language is no different, of course, although
in its supremacy and ubiquity, it is even more elusive, difficult to perceive. The very words you are looking at right now
are like compact little
cryptograms—a written
convention, talking back at you in codes.Poetry is language speaking for itself.—Jamie Allen

Neil Young

“I'm not sure that everything I write is mine,” the
musician claimed. “I think some of it just comes through me.Writing is not like thinking: thinking
involves logic, and when I'm writing a song, I try not to judge what I'm doing
until I'm finished.I try to be open and
follow the muse wherever it goes.And if
it's not around, I don't push it. There's no sense in trying to fan a flame if
there's no flame.”

Do
you speak in code?

Here is another reason why communication between people is
so darn difficult.We all have differing
backgrounds, experiences, preferences, biases, needs and wants—and all of these things affect how we
string words together to express our thoughts.This is the reason why several people who have heard the same person
speak will take away very different messages.Each person listens through her own filters of experience and may apply
different meaning to the same sets of words, or may place different levels of
importance on one part of the message over another.—Author Catherine
Wakelin

Pig Latin is a pseudo-language that is another way
of speaking in code. It's a little more common and a little easier to
deduce."Pig Latin" would
become ig-pay Atin-lay.